Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 14, 2009



The War of the Fifth Coalition in 1809 pitted a coalition of the Austrian Empire and the United Kingdom against Napoleon's French Empire and Bavaria. Major engagements between France and Austria, the main participants, unfolded over much of Central Europe from April to July, producing horrific casualty rates. Britain, already involved on the European continent in the ongoing Peninsular War, sent another expedition to the Netherlands to take pressure off the Austrians, although this had little impact on the outcome of the conflict. After much campaigning in Bavaria and across the Danube valley, the war ended favorably for the French after the bloody struggle at the Battle of Wagram. The resulting Treaty of Schönbrunn imposed harsh terms upon Austria, forcing her to concede territory accounting for over three million subjects, about one-fifth of her total population. France received Carinthia, Carniola, and the Adriatic ports, while Galicia was given to the Poles and the Salzburg area of the Tyrol went to the Bavarians. While fighting in the Iberian Peninsula would continue, the War of the Fifth Coalition was the last major conflict on the European continent until the French invasion of Russia in 1812 sparked the rise of the Sixth Coalition. (more...)

Recently featured: Super Smash Bros. Brawl – Water fluoridation – The Time Traveler's Wife